It's a 1948 Hawthorne something or another. The design theme for this one is a hard one to explain but I'll try.....

If someone in the 1950's living where I live, wanted to go to the California coast to get their peice of the southern California surfing life style, drag racing and hot rodding culture, and some of the "good life", how would they drive there? Route 66 West.....The Mother Road. So this build will be based on that thought.

Got the bike torn down. I've never messed with a skiptooth chain before so I havent touched it yet. I dont think I'll be re-using the skiptooth parts off this so I want to preserve them as best as possible in case someone needs them;

All the parts that came off minus the rear wheel & tire. The tire was pretty cool looking......it had a chain link tread on it but was in less than poor shape;

I also made some cardboard templates for the panel, trim and rack piece I'll be making;

Sorry, I didn't write it very well. I meant what type of tires and parts were your going to use?
I see now the parts and patterns you've laid out now and they looking really interesting.

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Oh....okay. I've got a set of chrome wheels and white wall tires. I'm pretty sure I'll be switching from the skip tooth drive to a standard drive, but not commetted to it yet. I bought some new chrome fenders but I'm not sure if I'll leave them chrome or have them painted/powdered to match the frame. I havent decided on which handlebars either. I've got a couple different ones I'm looking at.

I did a little tinkering on it this weekend....kinda sorta. I was trying to figure out what kind of headlight I'll use on this bike. I've got a couple of the tractor style utility lights that I thought would go with the overall look of the bike. But when I got to this old Seiss light set up, I thought I'd give it a shot:

I didnt want to use the battery tube on this build so I took them apart to see what kind of room I had inside to put a small battery in there. If the wires that go from the light to the battery tube were removed, that left about a 5/16" hole in the light housing. I thought I might try to find an LED bulb to replace the one in there but didn't have any luck. So while at the local (45 min away) Harbor Freight store, I spotted these LED lights on clearance.

The diameter of the chrome portion looked to be about the same so I started thinking of how I could use them. I bought a couple and tore into them when I got home.

It came apart w/ removing a few tint screws. The backing is a magnet so you could mount it on something metal and hold its position. Its also 12v only powered.

The chrome part slid right into the light housing and had a nice, snug fit. The flange kept it from going all the way in so I had to remove it:

Once I did that it fit like a glove!:

I put the glass lens and outer ring back on and BAM!! A vintage light w/ an LED conversion. The lights are bright too!

Pleased with the outcome of this operation, I decided to take one of my well used sanding blocks to clean off the grime and came out with this!

So you are putting the power source in the light housing or using the battery tube? How are you going to get hte 12volts?

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Not really sure yet. I thought about a 9v battery in each housing then adding adding micro switches for each, but I'm not dead-set on that yet. I'm still reasearching my options.

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How about a magnet switch mounted inside the light, then you can just stick a magnet over the area it's in to turn it on, one of those tiny strong magnets, you can stick them somewhere else when lights don't need to be on.

How about a magnet switch mounted inside the light, then you can just stick a magnet over the area it's in to turn it on, one of those tiny strong magnets, you can stick them somewhere else when lights don't need to be on.